The Fallen
by Taranova
Summary: Roy Mustang is forced to journey an alchemical underworld in order to save Edward's soul; unraveling the mystery could resurrect Amestris and those he loves. Based on Dante's Inferno. Possible slash in later chapters.
1. Scream

**Summary: **After a strange apocalyptic phenomenon leaves few survivors, Roy Mustang is mute, and Edward Elric has lost his soul. With no one to hear his story, Roy must travel the seven layers of hell, hoping to reclaim what was lost to him and reverse the terrors that unfolded around the fallen. Meanwhile, Alphonse tries to survive on the surface.

**Rating: **M

**Warnings: **Eventual slash (non-explicit), gore, heavy torture, disturbing imagery, established character deaths, religious implications.

**Pairings: **RoyEd, Al/Riza

**Note: **I have changed the time to present day. This is anime-verse. The first chapters are typical zombie-survival fare, and this will eventually transition into Inferno. The slash pairing (RoyEd) can be ignored, for the most part. Please note that there may be possible scenes of sexual connotation later in the story, according to my discretion.

* * *

Dust. It was everywhere, collecting in the least conspicuous of places, in folds of skin and underneath discarded furniture, cobwebs and decay. Of course, this did not bother the three or four occupants of the room. They were once called salesmen, before a lack of customers made their respectable trade _quite_ needless. They were once fathers, before their children and wives disappeared like dead leaves in the wind.

They all had different pasts and different lives, but they shared one similarity as of the present: they were all very lonely. One of them, thin and gray with age, raised an empty mug to his dry lips, imagining that there were something inside of the cloudy glass. Some amber burn of a liquid that would spare him another day with a parched throat. "There's a storm coming. You can hear it, deep down in the bowels."

The man beside him did not look up from his wrinkled yellow newspaper. The date printed on a corner of the front page read April 15. "Is that so?" he said cheerily.

The older man nodded. There was a mirror behind the empty bar, dark with stains and age, and he gazed at his own reflection curiously. "Expect thunder." He smiled, revealing a row of chipped and broken teeth.

"I was beginning to think it never would." The third man said lightly. He was smaller than the rest, and quite possibly younger; it was difficult to tell with his matted hair and torn trench coat. He, too, smiled, but kept his lips closed. "Will it bring a better harvest?"

"I think so," said the old man, "And my brother here thinks so, too." He was speaking of his reflection, which answered the statement with an identical crooked smile. He raised the mug again to his lips, tasting bitter glass and gulping down stale air. "Ah," he said with haughty jubilance, setting the mug down with a bang.

"I love a good storm," the man with the trench coat said, a slightly crazed look in his dark eyes. He licked his lips as though he could see something enticing right before him. "Brings out the best meat."

"Certainly." There was the rustling of newspaper pages. "Who doesn't?"

They continued to chatter, growing ever more animated in the darkness. At last there was a grating sound of a chair being scraped across the musty floor, and they all three turned their heads toward it.

In the back, there was another person. A tattered black raincoat was draped across his shoulders. He was visibly shivering, though the room was quite warm, almost to a point of uncontrollable sweating. Dark, dull eyes stared out from his pale complexion, and he unsteadily rose to his feet, gripping the wall for support.

"Stranger, you're still eating the roadside weeds," the old man said dismissively. "You need real sustenance."

The dark-haired man did not reply. He stood in silence for a moment, not making eye contact, therefore causing a brief tremor to course through the room's occupants with the unnaturalness of his disposition.

"You waiting for someone?" the old man asked. "If you are, you're lucky. Having a pretty girl to come home to." He gave a short laugh, though there was very little amusement in it. He gazed absentmindedly at his hands, and looked temporarily confused; he found he couldn't remember where they had received their crusty, dark-red stain.

A shadow fell across the threshold, and the bar's door opened with the jingle of a bell. A thin boy with short, light blonde hair and gray eyes entered. He frowned when he saw the dark-haired man, but his eyes lit up.

"Colonel," the teen said uncertainly, "we've been searching for you for days. I'd ask you to explain yourself."

The dark-haired man nodded, with a trace of guilt hidden behind his emotionless eyes. He set a hand down on the boy's arm, a small sign that he had heard and understood. His vocal cords remained dormant like petrified rope.

"We were scared that something had happened to you," the teen went on.

"Well, of all hellish things," the older man spoke up. "Looking out for your father, son? I would, too. He's not right in the head, my brother thinks. What's your name, boy?"

He hesitated. "Alphonse Elric. But names aren't important anymore. You know that."

"_Living_ isn't important anymore," the man in the trench coat said with a dry laugh. "But it's so pleasant to see humanity at its worst. It's almost entertaining, seeing your kin battle over the morality of yesterday. Anyway, Alphonse Elric, take care of your _father_, or they'll be harvesting _him _next."

"He's not my father," Al muttered darkly. "But thanks for the advice. Come on, colonel sir. Let's go."

Roy Mustang followed him wordlessly out the door, hands deep in his pockets. He didn't watch where he was going, and merely listened to Al's muffled steps. The bar's door closed with a clang, and they were in an emptier, drearier world altogether. The air smelled roughly of sulfur and ash that made it difficult to breathe in the open air. The sky was a charcoal black, as it often was. Thick footprints were left in the snow-like covering of dust and dirt on the ground, and the skeletal shape of fire-gutted buildings protruded from every angle of vision.

"The others are waiting below," Alphonse said slowly, making small conversation as if that would help to fill the stiff silence. "And since you left, I found more food. Nothing of value, but enough to shut up the hunger."

Roy nodded. He stopped for a moment, and waited for Al to do the same. When the boy did, he stared at him, a desperate, imploring look in his eyes.

Al understood. "Brother is still alive."

Relief flooded Roy's body, and a wan smile graced his lips before disappearing just as fleetingly. He continued onward, a new quickness in his steps.

"You're not going to tell us why you left again, are you?" Al asked sadly. The dark-haired man seemed to ignore him, and he accepted it with a frown. "Of course not…how stupid of me to ask…"

He suddenly stiffened as a low siren started in the distance. Someone still operated the emergency sirens and blared them when the clouds of fetid hunger gathered. It was the last, ghostly sign of civilization. Al looked briefly over his shoulder, noticing with growing dread that the clouds began to grumble. "They'll be coming out. We need to leave."

He and Roy broke into a run, the sky growing ever darker. They seemed to move at an impossible speed, though perhaps it was simply easier in Central's much less crowded streets. No living man dared to travel them. If indeed there were survivors, they would be locked away, hidden. For now, underground was the safest place.

They neared a dead-end in a narrow alleyway, broken glass from building windows crunching beneath their feet. Alphonse kneeled on the ground by a sewer, effortlessly removing the lid. "You first."

Roy obeyed without the least bit of reluctance, climbing in. Al followed, pulling the lid back over after him. They were cast into sudden darkness, but this did not bother them in the slightest. They strolled through the waist-high water as though it were nothing more than a walk in the park, listening for the familiar sounds of life, and often becoming disappointed.

The passage steadily became narrower, the water gradually lowering until it was knee-deep. A dim light appeared at the end of the tunnel, and Roy took in a sharp breath, breaking once again into a sprint as he sloshed through mysterious grime. Shadows flickered on the walls; they moved, and he could see a familiar silhouette. He didn't stop, didn't blink, until he felt someone scream in relief and hold him very tightly in their slender arms. He breathed in Riza's scent, closed his eyes and stroked the back of her head. Hot tears fell silently down his face, and he promised himself that he would never leave again.

Of course, promises were _meant_ to be broken.

"Oh, God…it was so long, I thought you'd died," she whispered shakily, trembling as he held her. She noticed that he still did not respond, didn't utter a sound, and she began to cry even harder.

"Hawkeye," Al spoke up, feeling just a bit guilty as he broke up the reunion.

She turned to face him, wiping the tears from her eyes. "Yes, Alphonse?"

"Where is he?"

She sobered, pointing quietly to a group of disastrous looking people all huddled around a small fire. A slight tremor shook the tunnels, followed by a faint echoing roar. Both soon subsided, and no one seemed to have even registered what had become the norm. They could only imagine what was happening on the surface. "Did you get what we need?"

Al nodded grimly, keeping his eyes locked on the small crowd as he unzipped the backpack slung across his shoulder. He reached inside and pulled out a small bag with a mixture of wild grass and tree bark. "It was all I could find. Theytook everything else."

"Thank you," Riza said eagerly, snatching the bag away. She sat cross-legged, the ragged blanket she wore falling away to the ground. She dumped the bag's contents, and counted every piece of nature. "It should be enough. You boil down these roots and it'll trick the stomach into thinking it's full."

Al nodded solemnly. It was no use, and he knew it. No one had eaten a proper meal in weeks. All of the food had either gone bad, been stolen, or been burned in the fires after the initial blast. For a long while, they were so desperate a banana peel was appetizing.

Slowly he walked toward the firelight, stopping before a very stone-like figure. If one looked carefully, they could see that it was breathing. Al laid a hand on his brother's face, noting with a stab that the only sign of life in his eyes was a quick dilation of his pupils. "Can you hear me?"

The boy took a moment to speak. "Yes," Ed replied monotonously.

Al nodded. "And do you know who I am?"

This time there was absolutely no reply. The answer given before had evidently cost a lot of effort to begin with; Ed numbly closed his eyes, breathing with pained difficulty.

"Riza," Al called gently. He clenched his fists, fighting back his tears. "It's not going to work."

"Yes it will," Riza said, brushing a loose strand of hair from her eyes. She sat back against the wall, sweat beading on her forehead. Another tremor shook the tunnels, and she gazed pleadingly toward the ceiling. "It has to."

"No," Al protested weakly, rising to his feet. His blood felt like it was on fire. His brother was half-dead, it was his fault, and nothing was going to change that. "No, it's not, Riza, and you _know_ what we have to do."

"No," Riza said, shaking her head furiously. She drew her knees to her chest, voice cracking as she said even more loudly, "No, Alphonse Elric, we're not going to become like them."

A little girl with a heavily scarred face stared up at Al questioningly. He wanted to hold her, to tell her everything was going to be okay. But he couldn't. She was frightened; he could see it in her eyes. She was unable to speak, though whether from injury or mental choice he wasn't certain. "There's so many weak people in this world, Riza. And we're going to become those people if we don't do what we have to do."

"And become a monster?" Riza demanded with an angry whisper. "Do you think that will save your brother, Alphonse? It won't, it just won't…"

"I won't be a monster because I want it. I'll be a monster because it's the only way we can survive." He surveyed the pitiful group of men, women and children; all hollow eyes and bony faces. They didn't have hope anymore. They had seen hell; really, truly seen it, and now, they were trapped in what was left. A single tear rolled down Al's face. "There used to be six billion people in this world, Riza."

She nodded. "I know."

They both collapsed into silence. Roy remained where he was for a moment, and then tentatively took a few steps toward Riza. He kneeled down before her, and she avoided his gaze, even as he took her chin gently into his hand. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry I can't do anything else to help you."

He took a loose stone on the ground and moved away from her. He went toward Edward, scraped a single line on the wall above his head, and he counted the markings in his mind, trying to remember. He smiled.

Ed shuddered, as though cold, though he was only a few feet from the fire. He went instantly still as the back of Roy's hand grazed his forehead, and closed his eyes. He was only acutely aware of a shadow falling across him, and then the sensation of someone familiar holding him as loosely as possible to avoid causing harm. He dully remembered the scent of cologne; the color blue; heat; and the fear that something secret would be discovered. Somehow, he knew deep down inside that those things no longer mattered.

He was an empty shell. Those memories, tangible and real, but not his. He remembered everything but had no feelings for them.

A violent disturbance shook the earth, and his trembling resumed. He willed himself into a deep sleep, blocking out the sudden sounds of hoarse, terrified screams, wishing for a morning that would never come.

Alphonse pressed himself against the wall, hands firmly against his ears to protect them from the roar of the planet breaking apart. He prayed that the tunnels would hold; prayed that those above ground would remain wherever they were, not drawn out by the quake to the monsters who were more desperate than he.

_The date is October 7. _

He removed his hands, daring a quick glance down the tunnel's darkness in terror. He could hear them. "No…no, you bastards, you can't be here!"

_Five months ago, the world ended. _

He ran toward the others, dragging Hawkeye alongside him in desperation. "Run, you idiots!" He saw comprehension dawn on Roy's face from the corner of his eye, relieved as the man took Ed with him in his arms.

_I don't know why we survived. I don't even know why we're still here. Whatever happened to God? Whatever happened to heaven?_

They were lost, they were lost, they were hopelessly lost…

_I am not sure I want to know._

Al cursed loudly as he saw the dozen or so strangers closing the space between them. They were feral, rabid, yelling. Larger, muscular, and yet more inhuman than anything he had ever come across. The little girl from earlier was falling behind. He could see her lagging on an injured leg; he reached out for her hand, wishing to scoop her up, when her broken leg splintered beneath her. She fell in a screaming heap, blood spurting from the wound. The wild strangers' pace slowed as they detected the crimson serum.

_Time has turned many into the devil's own. We have come to accept it._

Al ignored her pleading cries for help, instead turning away and running more quickly; he heard anguished cries and a few sickening cracks before all noise was beyond his proper range. It was all too much for him. He paused for a brief instant, dry retching, but there was nothing in his stomach to throw up.

_We are the Dead. _

He collapsed to the ground, sobbing, clutching a sprained ankle. He knew it was foolish, too foolish, to stop.

_We are the Forgotten. _

Darkness pressed in on him. He didn't want to give in. But damn it, sleep and dream and nothingness were such tempting thoughts. "Forgive me...brother." He let his head fall to the ground, allowing himself to be consumed by the blackness of his mind.

_We are the Fallen._


	2. Invalid

He was in a cornfield. There was a beautiful lilting melody wafting through it. He raised his head, and was overcome by such comfort that his mouth made a peculiar sound. The clouds seemed to move on illusion themselves, stretching across the vastness of a crystalline blue sky; he saw Edward, lying ahead of him, his eyes alight with emotion. Edward with any kind of feeling was distant to Alphonse, so the sight overjoyed him.

But he knew it was a dream. Somehow, just knowing that made it all disappear. The earth was cracked, the wind blew hard, the weeds flew about in a black sky. And Edward. Edward was dead, with blood seeping from a hole in his chest.

"Alphonse."

His eyes opened. He was lying down on his back, water up to the lower lobes of his ears. Hawkeye was staring down at him, a concerned look on her face. Pain shot through Al's ankle, and he violently remembered the attack that had caused the whole mess. He sat up quickly, and looked down at his leg. Hawkeye must have tended his broken bones, because there was a makeshift bandage around his foot and it appeared to be soaked with water and blood.

"Where's Ed?" he asked without thinking, eyes still glued to his foot.

Hawkeye ran a soothing cool hand over his forehead. "He's fine. Roy took him and the rest of them ahead. They're waiting in an alley about a mile south of here." A low grumble cut off her words, shaking the walls for a time or two until it subsided. They both acted as if the tremor hadn't occurred.

"Did anyone get hurt?" he heard himself say, reaching for her extended hand. She helped to pull him up, but he shoved her off instantly, thinking he could walk on his own. A step forward changed that idea, and she was soon supporting him from under the arm.

"No," she answered. "Just that little girl. Her mother's in hysterics. Her eyes...they looked funny, I guess it must have been shock..."

"She's with the rest of them?"

"Yes."

Al said nothing more, his mouth a thin line and the workings of his mind turning furiously.

* * *

He and Riza caught up with them in less than an hour. It was safe to walk the streets at this time of day, so they did, keeping together as a group seeing as civilization had all but crumbled. The few men there were paid particular attention to the women, knowing of the foul stories circulating about attacks on them at night.

Thankfully it was dawn, or what was considered the dawn. Nowadays it was little more than a hazy light filtering through dark clouds. Alphonse usually led them through the streets, and they would organize themselves into raiding parties. They would break windows and steal from the empty and gutted buildings lining the roads. Occasionally they would come across small bands of travelers, like themselves, who had not yet succumbed to the Hold.

But they would not do anything but stare at each other, glaring in the smoky darkness, more like animals than people. Al would be the first to break the silence. "Let's go," he would say, and send dirty looks over his shoulder at the outsiders. A long time ago, he might have welcomed them, but times were hard, and he did not trust those outside of his own small network of followers. The Hold hadn't infiltrated them yet. In fact, the only technically ill person was Edward.

Edward.

He signaled for them to stop, casting a glance backward to make sure Roy still had his brother in his grasp. When he saw that it was so, he breathed a sigh of relief. Ed could walk. He just needed to be watched. He was in an almost comatose state-_had _been since the first wave of fire had come upon them. But Al didn't know all the details. All he knew was that Roy had supposedly found him, perhaps even saved him. That was all, and he couldn't ask for any more information.

"Colonel," he said to Mustang, somewhat frightened by the authority in his own voice. Being the only person in a stable authoritative condition, he had long ago taken it upon himself to take care of everyone else. "You're staying with Ed today. You're not running off again."

Roy's face darkened. Even if he wasn't all there, he could understand if he was being talked down to. Even so, he stiffly nodded his head.

They kept weary eyes on the windows of the buildings around them; the air was stale and thick with smoke and the smell of burning flesh. They heard crunching and tearing somewhere down the road. Alphonse continued for a few feet and very stealthily glanced around the corner. He appeared sickened by what he saw, but beckoned them to come forward very quietly.

Hawkeye felt vomit rise in her throat. There were two of them - a man and a woman, she guessed - looking normal but for the terrible crimson red their eyes had turned. And they were gathered around a fire, passivity in their faces and strange meat in their mouths. She looked away, and grateful that the couple didn't notice the band of people from such a distance, too occupied with their mealtime.

They all ducked into the opening of a subway, the awning bent and broken. The stairwell was dark, and the dozen or so women and children filed in first. Edward froze at the top of the stairs, and his eyes widened so impossibly that Roy paused beside him. Ed said nothing, simply shaking his head once, and pointing down into the dark subway tunnel, as though that would explain.

Roy gave him a pitied glance, laying a hand on his shoulder. The teen calmed down a bit at that, but said, "Sin."

He allowed Roy to walk him down the stairs, one at a time, holding onto him for support.

Alphonse's mouth worked above them. He jerked his head forward, mentally telling Hawkeye to go in before him. She obeyed wordlessly. However, he remained for a while, in deep thought. It was undeniable that the connection between the Colonel and Edward was strong. Sometimes he wondered just how strong. If they actually understood each other, or if they were just two broken people who could empathize.

* * *

Some of the men broke into a shop above ground, and found a stack of books two or three feet high. That was what they decided to burn for heat and light. It was getting colder.

Normally Alphonse advised hiding underground. It was true that the Held could more easily find them, given their heightened senses and liking of the darkness; but they were also rendered mostly blind in that same dark. It was safer in tunnels and sewers because of that.

The buildings in the city were already worn or torn apart. They were unsafe to live in. Some were gutted with fire; some were filled with the corpses and stench of the dead.

The woman whose child had been murdered was crying hysterically by the fire. Hawkeye was right - there was something about her eyes. A kind of pink to them. A simple bacterial infection or something much worse.

He approached her. Roy watched him with dark eyes from the sidelines. "Hey," he said for lack of anything else. Her black, long hair was fried and dry from beneath the shawl she wore on her head. She looked up at him, tears streaming down her face. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

She stared at him, and he shivered. She looked away without a word, her sobs suddenly quieted. That puzzled him. He laid a hand on her shoulder, and turned her around to face him. "Look. I'm sorry about your daughter. We've all lost a lot, though. We just have to keep on moving." Small words for such a large thing, he knew. He felt sick just saying them, but there was nothing more he could do but tell the truth. He couldn't say it was going to get better. Because it would be a lie.

She started crying again. Guilt tore at his mind. He thought of the knife in his pocket.

"My baby's gone," she said in a hoarse voice. She coughed, and the fire sparked in front of her. Dead-eyed woman cringed at the sound of her coughing, not needing the noise; children curled up in their laps sucked at helplessly thin fingers. The woman with the dead girl...her voice sounded like Theirs. The ones with the uncontrollable hunger. It was an early stage of the Hold, true, but nonetheless it gave him an excuse to do the previously unthinkable.

Al took the knife from his pocket and reached around, slitting her throat in one quick movement. She choked on her blood, words drowning as they tried to escape her lips. But she wasn't shocked or angry or scared. She looked as though she had seen it coming, and the rest of the group didn't bat any eyelashes. Alphonse moved the bleeding woman away from the fire so that the spray of blood wouldn't dampen it. Was that selfish? Was that a sign that he was becoming a sociopath...?

Her body drained itself on the floor, and he leaned her corpse against the wall. There was blood all over his hands and clothes. He turned to Roy, finding that Hawkeye was asleep in his lap, Ed leaning against the wall behind him with the same dead look in his eyes. But Roy was staring at him. Condescendingly, it seemed, as if to say, _look at what you've done. _But Roy also seemed to convey that he understood.

* * *

The fire died out over time, and they all curled into each other and fell asleep. It lasted that way for a long time, until Alphonse was awakened by the sound of a harsh voice singing.

He felt for his knife, and looked up. In the darkness he saw a faint shape moving in the subway tunnel, away from the platform on which they rested. It was a single person, hunched over. Perhaps an old woman. He felt for the lone pack of matches in his pocket, and lit one. The light disturbed none of those sleeping beside him but allowed him a better look.

His eyes widened.

* * *

She drank heartily from a flask she kept tied around her neck, the light coming from her tiny lantern illuminating her thin features. Her old eyes were pale gray and her fingers bent with age, but there was a certain light to her. There was a circulating legend about her, if she was whom they thought. They called her the Whisperer, and she was supposedly the woman who had successfully foretold the end of the world to begin with.

Alphonse and Roy sat beside her, quietly watching and listening to what she had to say.

She reached into her tattered old purse, pulling out stale saltine crackers half crumbled. "For you, dear?" she asked Alphonse in a grandmotherly old voice. Al looked at them, hunger rumbling in his stomach, but shook his head. She shrugged, and then shoved them at Roy. "You?"

He said nothing, and she withdrew the hand.

Alphonse licked at his dry lips. "Why are you here?" he asked.

She dug around some more in her purse. It was an ugly old thing, worn and torn apart. It smelled like perfume. "I was looking for my dog."

"Your dog?" Al said quietly. Perhaps she was just a crazy old woman lost in the subway tunnels. But he would know her from anywhere. She was the beggar woman who used to sit on Central's street corners, holding a bible to her chest and preaching the apocalypse. Who knew that she would be right? "I'm sorry. We haven't heard or seen any dog."

"I'd thought as much. No, Tabby keeps to himself mostly. He won't do you any harm, so long as you don't do any harm to him. If you try, he'll gnaw your arm off, and there's no point fighting. He'll get what he wants." She laughed, as though she had told a particularly marvelous joke.

Al didn't laugh, but Roy had the faintest of smiles cross his face. "Listen," Al said, sending Roy a reproachful glare, "I've heard you're a doctor. Someone that can see auras and spirits. Someone who understands what's been going on."

"Did you, now?"

"Yes," Al said, somewhat miffed by her light treatment of the subject. "My brother. Something's wrong with him. I don't know what to do for him."

She didn't look up from her purse. Al was getting slightly impatient at her frivolity.

"Where is he?" she asked.

Al indicated to where his brother laid asleep. "Over there. He talks and eats and moves, but he doesn't...it's like he's..."

The Whisperer picked up her tattered shawl around herself, and got up and walked over to Edward. She knelt down beside him and gently reached for his chin, tilting it up so that he was more visible in the light. He didn't stir. She tsked a few times. "Pretty little thing, isn't he? Like a light in all this dark. His skin feels normal. Can't be the Hold. No, I don't think that's it at all."

Roy stiffened a bit. He opened and closed his fist, glaring silently at the old woman with some distrust. Al knew that the man didn't like anyone touching Edward. Not even Al was allowed to make contact without unspoken permission: It was that bond again. Something linked his brother and Mustang.

"Can I wake him?" the Whisperer asked, looking to Alphonse. Al nodded toward Roy, indicating that he was the one in charge. The Whisperer pursed her lips in understanding.

Roy gave Al a dirty look, and then hesitantly nodded yes.

The Whisperer shook him awake. It didn't take much more than a simple prodding, and his golden eyes opened in such a flash that it frightened her back a few inches. Nonetheless, she stared as he stared back in simple emotionless concentration. He seemed to know exactly who she was, what she was doing, and he didn't breathe. She tenderly moved his head back and forth, his demented gaze never leaving hers.

Her expression generally became troubled. Even Alphonse shivered. Edward appeared, in his own silent way, to be trembling in anger. It wasn't Ed, either. Something told him...it just wasn't Ed. Not then.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Shush," the Whisperer said, bending closer toward the blond. She released him, but couldn't look away from him, as though if she did he would jump from his frozen stance and attack her. She went through her purse again and found what she had been looking for. A simple pocket bible. She flipped through it idly, and Ed watched her, narrowing eyes the only sign of movement.

"My God," the Whisperer said softly. She read a few lines of mumbled verse, and then dropped the book to the floor.

"What is it?" Alarm crept into Al's mind.

"Look at me," the Whisperer commanded Ed, ignoring Alphonse completely. There was urgency in her tone now. "Talk to me."

Alphonse shook as his brother spoke. It was his voice, but it wasn't his voice. It was like all of that passion and love and motivation had been twisted into apathy, hatred, and sin.

"Why have you come?"

Roy didn't appear frightened at all. He was glaring, and trembling so intensely that Al had to hold him back to keep him from springing. There was hate in the man's eyes - dark hate - and it was directed at Edward. Al couldn't understand the sudden change in his emotions.

"Who are you?" the Whisperer demanded of Ed. A thin, malicious looking smile crossed his lips, but he did not reply. "Who are you?"

The rumbling started again, far off in the cracks of the ground. The earth trembled violently, dust falling from the ceiling. The lights flickered on and off briefly, and the band of survivors woke, including Hawkeye. The room was a mess of confusion for twenty or so seconds, and then the quake stopped.

Edward was coughing. The Whisperer saw tears in his eyes, and took pity on him for a moment. All sign of the dementia was gone. She held a handkerchief to his mouth.

Roy hurriedly crawled over to him, and held him against his chest. He stroked back his hair, sending a warning glance in the Whisperer's direction. Edward was sobbing in his arms, but his eyes were clouded, as though he couldn't see what was happening.

Alphonse was calming down the women and children, but their voices seemed far away in that instant. The Whisperer looked at her handkerchief, and found it was stained with drops of blood. "He's lost his soul," she said calmly, as though dealing out the weather. "It was taken from him."

Roy looked up at her with interrogative eyes. Nevertheless, he was not shocked, by any means. If anything, it was confirmation. _Tell me how to fix it, _he pleaded mentally.

She fixed him with a long stare. "This child belongs to Him, now. His soul has been ripped from his body, replaced by the spirit of a demon, and the demon wants out. The creature will do whatever it takes to have the child killed."

The sirens started wailing.


	3. Necro

_They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. (Revelation 7.16)_

* * *

It started to rain later in the evening, great chunks of sulfurous water falling onto Central's streets. It wasn't drinkable. It wasn't even touchable. It was so acidic that a single drop could burn a hole through flesh. The gases that rose up from the sewers after the rain was toxic to breathe in, and acted as carbon monoxide would. It killed brain cells until death or irreversible coma set in. So Alphonse kept everyone underground, trying to coax the children back into sleeping.

It was difficult, mainly because of how starved and forlorn they were. There were now seven in total, all under eight years old. Some were orphaned, others had parents who were dying. And two were dying themselves. Alphonse knew it was inevitable that they would all die at some point or another, and nightly contemplated killing them all in an act of mercy. No one deserved to starve in a world like that. Not with the sky always burning crimson or black with ash, not in a world where the grisly was a factor of life.

Not in a world that was overrun by creatures of the night.

"Colonel," he said to Roy. The man had been holding onto Edward for some time, and the blond had eventually fallen back into sleep. The Whisperer was ignoring all of those around her, and had been chanting and whispering soft prayers for hours. In her aged hands was a necklace of rosary beads. "Colonel, I need to know if you can keep an eye on him while I try to find more food once the rain stops."

Roy nodded once, aware of only the small body in his arms and the delicate breathing that reminded him of the life occupying it. His gaze drifted over the Whisperer and back to Alphonse, over and over again, an impenetrable wall around his consciousness.

"Okay." Alphonse went over to Hawkeye, who was awake and with a small child in her lap. She was stroking the girl's hair with a kind of motherly attentiveness. "Riza, make sure he doesn't wander off again."

"I will."

* * *

Roy watched him leave when he did, dark eyes smoldering. Only when the teenager's flashlight disappeared up the cement steps of the subway station did he let go of Edward, and lay him softly down on cool mosaic tile. The men had all gone with Alphonse to break through shop windows and old apartments, and the women and children were all fast asleep on the floor. He had been left a knife to keep the Held away, though secretly he knew that it wouldn't do any good if they were attacked.

They could only hope the acid rains disguised their scent.

He quietly approached the Whisperer from behind. She was still mumbling prayers, fingering through her bible with its worn and torn pages. When he laid a hand on her shoulder, the chanting ceased, and she jumped. She turned around and put a hand to her heart. "My lord, you gave me a scare."

He remained standing, looking over her rosary beads. They were charred but still in good form, the wood slightly warped from constantly being wet.

"You don't speak," the Whisperer said, voice echoing in the darkness. "Sit down." She indicated the floor beside her.

Roy obeyed the command, the light of her lamp casting eerie shadows on both of their faces. He lounged slightly on the dry cement flooring, a casual position that didn't relay his somber disposition. They were right beside the subway tracks, and he imagined the trains that used to rumble through the tunnels at that time of night. Great silver bullets that streamed passengers both inside and out - people. People that would never be remembered or acknowledged in the rest of history.

"Now." The Whisperer reached into her purse, and pulled out a saltine cracker. "Come on, eat it."

He accepted it, though it tasted rather bland. He wasn't hungry-he never was. He ate to survive but opted to give most of whatever he had to the ones that really needed it. He had lost his appetite months ago.

"I suppose you must have seen something rather awful. We've all seen our fair share of the darkness—hard not to, in these times. But I think that you've really...really seen hell, if you know what I mean."

Roy closed his eyes, something thick building in his throat. He didn't want to see any of it ever again. He didn't want to be trapped there, ever again. He wished he could tell her with some part of his being, but couldn't. He would rather stay silent than admit he was wrong. To convey the thoughts rushing through his head, he held out his hand to her. She took it, giving him a curious glance, and then pushed up the sleeve of his raincoat. She gasped a bit, seeing the thick, burning scars that crisscrossed his arm. In the grid of wounds was a cross - upside down.

"Who was it?" she whispered, letting her cool fingers splay across his wrist. "This isn't all, no, not by a longshot. I've never seen it."

"It's..." Roy cracked out, his first word spoken in several months. He shivered intensely, his body vibrating with chills. The branding, the heat, the knives, the crushing, the pain, it was all there but - it wasn't the end of the road. No one knew about what he hid inside of his head; no one but Edward. And Edward was gone. "...for him."

The Whisperer had wet tears in her eyes.

"For his..." Roy looked over at Edward, shuddering sobs racking his body. He leaned forward and gripped the Whisperer by her thick shawl for support, feeling the energy drain out of him as he focused on conveying the thoughts that constantly battered against his brain. "F-for his b-body...and mind..." He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut as he remembered. The circles lining the stone walls. The laughter in the caverns, the darkness that penetrated sour smelling air.

_"A choice!" a voice had said mockingly. "You have a choice, alchemist_._"_

A foreign language spoke in dark rooms. He hadn't been able to identify any of it; but he wondered, in the thick of the torture, in the thick of watching them take Edward from him - he had wondered whether or not hell actually existed. If there was a God, or if logic had escaped him in a moment of pain. Surely this was all alchemical, surely illusion upon illusion upon...

Then the world ended.

"You put yourself through the pain of hell," the Whisperer said softly, "to save his physical form. But they tricked you, didn't they? The demons tricked you."

Demons? Hardly. He had no idea who or what they were - half the time, he had been blind with some kind of pepper fire. "Can't." He shook his head, his throat closing up. "Gave up...mind and body...for his..."

Wounds and insanity.

He gave a shuddering gasp, the images pulsing through his head until he became lost in them. He pushed into her body without meaning to, his eyes wide in the wake of a living nightmare.

_There was fire all around, and screaming, too. He could hear beyond the walls of the place - jet planes and rockets, trying to fend off the crawling black monsters with the many pairs of eyes. He put a finger to his lips, and tasted blood, and looked ahead_

_"Let him go!" _

_Beatings followed soon after, and a torch, and mindless chaos_

_Black, black, black_

_"What do you want? What the fuck is happening?" _

_His radio turned itself on. Havoc's voice flooded through. "Colonel? Are you there?" _

_Fizz. Static. A blood curdling scream. The radio broke. _

_The shapes of the creatures - like distorted forms of human beings, with poisoned violet eyes_

_They held onto him, and threw him into walls, and he tried to snap his fingers - alchemy, wasn't working_

_Alchemy doesn't work_

_Alchemy didn't work_

_Fuck_

_And then silence, because they all left him, and there was a strange man wearing dark robes, with a thick black beard. He had an accent - some kind of Drachman, perhaps. And it was cold, and there was snow on the ground, and he had Edward in his arms, and the boy was unconscious -_

_"What do you want?" Roy asked, "Who are you?" _

_The man smiled, taking hold of Edward's hair - _don't touch him - _"Jazebeth." _

_He ignored Roy's screams of protest, and some part of light escaped the boy's eyes, his lips parting as death came upon him _

_"Why He wants the child, I cannot understand."_

_Then a blast of fire that should not have happened but did _

_Thank the gods_

_Over. _


	4. Silence

Alphonse bit back a strangled yelp as searing pain surged through his ankle. He fell onto the hard, uncomfortable pile of rubble - broken pipe and great chunks of concrete - and put his leg across his lap. One of the earthquakes had made a deep rift, and the land had raised itself to over forty feet on the other side. Black earth glared at him, tall buildings towering over in shadow. He could see down into the sewers and further because of the tearing in the crust of the earth.

If he were able to jump across and climb - though the idea seemed remarkably suicidal, even to him - he was certain by the bent and twisted street signs that an artillery shop was just above. Even if it was a false hope, having a gun or two was a better option than fending off assailants with a dull-bladed knife.

Though the fact that he had just caught his already mangled ankle between two slabs of corroded steel and concrete didn't help matters. He bit down hard on his tongue, blood seeping from the gash on his foot. Dirt and grime had gotten into the wound, and every time he moved his leg, he was sure that he could see bone poking through.

Sooner or later, it was going to get severely infected, and with infection came illness. If he died, he supposed he could depend on Mustang to keep everyone safe, but Mustang was clearly mentally unstable. So he added penicillin to his grocery list.

_Why do I...treat death so lightly...?_

He was leaning against the wall to a brownstone building, with broken windows and a smell of death and decay. He realized it was an apartment building, and then helped himself up by holding onto the corrosive wall with his hand. He limped forward, slowly, eyes occasionally darting to the blood red sky. Only ravens with jewel eyes stalked it nowadays, and he had a feeling they were just a distinctive breed of the creatures that rose from the darkness on April third. The creatures with the many pairs of violet irises.

He tried the door, and wasn't surprised to find it was locked and bolted from the inside. He cursed, and then looked about the ground to find a heavy object he could throw at the glass. As he did, he realized how forlornly alone he was; up and down the street, until distance melded into further distance, there was not another soul. Just empty, gutted cars with burned frames, just dark stains where the dead had rotted into oblivion. Shop signs and bank signs and drug store signs were pale and unlit, the street lamps dull, broken glass around the bottom of the poles. He half expected to fall into emptiness. It was such a strange thing to be truly alone. Truly without another human being to cling to.

The other men had taken an alternative route, dissatisfied by what they called his ill will and selfish temperament. Well, it wasn't his fault they were cowards. Wasn't his fault they would rather starve and let their families starve than take matters into their own hands and bloody _fight. _

Finding nothing to throw, he took a few steps back. With a loud cry to make his muscles taut, he ran at the window and struck it with the side of his body at the shoulder. Broken shards erupted around his jacket, small fragments stinging his face and others embedding themselves in the thick fabric of his clothes. The shattering had made a wide enough space for him to fit, though before he pulled himself through, he removed his jacket so that any stray glass didn't cut into his back.

_That was a stupid, stupid thing to do. _

He hissed as a jagged piece of glass scraped across his palm, but bore it, and managed to ease himself through the relatively small space. As soon as he escaped the smoke clouded air, a new scent filled his quivering nostrils: that of death and decay. Impulsively, he pulled his shirt over his nose, and tried not to breathe.

The interior was the small and cramped hallway of a dingy apartment building. The stairwell was iron, the oak doors plastered with brass numbers now neglected. He took a step forward and heard a foreboding crunch. He looked down and gasped aloud, realizing that perhaps he wasn't as alone as he thought he was. The dark, dark form of a rotted corpse glared up at him, now little more than soil.

He stumbled backwards.

There were three black, shapeless forms on the floor, one wedged between a doorway. The dead. Unidentifiable; if they had ever had faces, it was impossible to tell. There was no point mourning for them anymore. As Alphonse had learned from the past months, life invariably gave way to death, and death laid the path for decay. It was a fluctuating cycle he was all too aware of and increasingly disturbed by. Not even human memory could preserve the deceased.

Of that, he had confirmed long ago, when he realized he couldn't remember his mother's face.

* * *

"Hmm..." The man very carefully examined the underside of the lamp. "We've got a leak. If the boy isn't back with more fuel for the lamp, then...well, we're out of light for another day or two."

The little girl's face alighted, enhanced by the glow of the lamp. "Daddy. We'll be like the Maccabees, in Jerusalem, remember?" She smiled. Her body was so thin, so starved, that the old man could scarcely stand to look at her. The Jews weren't eating each other alive at the temple, he had to remind himself. She scooted forward, the short length of her skirt coming up around her legs beneath her. "If we pray then it'll last for days, right?"

He bit down hard on his tongue to keep from yelling at her. Praying won't work anymore, Dalia! Not after those things devoured your mother, do you understand that, you stupid girl? Do you remember your god, child? Well, that god is dead. Everything is dead!

"No, sweet." He laid a gentle hand on her head, forcing his lips to turn upward. "Just for another day. We can't get our hopes up, right?"

She was disheartened by that, but didn't turn away. "Yes, daddy."

Roy paced alongside the tracks, staring down into the oily deep. The tunnels stretched black and beyond. He scarcely dared to imagine the dark creatures that lay beyond it. Scratch that. He didn't want to _remember_ the dark creatures that lay beyond it. His gaze kept turning back to Edward, sleeping as soundly as possible with such a pained expression of nightmare, and he tried to remember - just why he cared so much.

Because he honestly couldn't. His mind was foggy, drawing such a blank slate of memory that his own vocabulary was distant and remarkably unusable. The things that he did consciously recall were too dark and hideous to dive into and understand.

He was a state alchemist. That much was clear, and the boy Alphonse had confirmed just as much. But alchemy was just a mystery now. Impossible to use, as though chemistry itself had been destroyed. His hands felt incomplete.

He remembered...gloves.

Roy knew that Edward remembered even less, and it wasn't trauma's fault.

_ScReAmfOrThESaCriLigEoUs_

He pressed his hands quickly to his ears, blocking out a high pitched scream that no one else seemed to hear, white noise all around his eyes. It was just a vision, just a memory, just a trick of the light. And as soon as it started it was over.

* * *

Alphonse broke the glass, cutting up his arms before reaching a greedy bloody hand inside the cabinet. He knocked old papers and journals and pens aside, records of the apartment's residents now invariable useless. It was also a medicine cabinet, and he grabbed what he could. Alas. No penicillin.

He stuffed it all into his satchel bag, along with a half-empty bag of potato chips and some soft apples left on the counter of the lobby. He was just about to leave when he spotted a shining black object resting haphazardly off the top shelf of the cabinet.

A handgun.

* * *

"_Somebody fucking kill me_!"

Hawkeye fought against the furiously struggling blond teenager beneath her. He kept on screaming no matter what she said to calm him down, his every muscle taut with agony. "Ed, you have to tell me what's wrong or else-" He kicked her away subconsciously, biting down on his lip to hold back another ear-splitting scream. His eyes were glued shut and he didn't appear to be aware of anything but his pain.

"By the goddamn gate." Riza pushed sweat dampened hair behind her ear. "Hey! I need help over here!"

Two men reluctantly came to her side, the darkness illuminating the pale shadows on their faces. Roy watched from above, standing with that same impenetrable stare, a barely noticeable movement between his thumb and forefinger. Back and forth, a reaction without purpose.

"What the hell's wrong with him?" one of the men asked, breathing harshly against Edward's surprising strength. Neither could decipher where the power came from. Ed shouldn't have been so strong, for someone so weak.

"I don't know. He gets fits like this, we don't know why." Riza looked around the room, and then found a darker, less occupied corner on the further side of the station. The teen's screams of pain eventually fell off into ragged breathing, his eyes wandering in some haunted dream.

Ed winced. "Lieutenant?" He could barely see her through his blurred vision, but identified her by the sound of her voice, calling him back from the darkness. Years, time, it was all ephemeral. He had a few minutes, at least, of reprieve. "I'm burning alive._" _

"It's okay. You're going to be okay. Can you stand?"

"I don't...I don't know..." He sucked in, cringing into himself as a small tremor shook the earth. "I don't..." He looked at her curiously, eyes nearly closed, small pinpricks of light gold. "I can't remember anything."

Riza lowered the volume of her voice to a whisper. "Can't or won't?"

Everything went still. The tracks, the grime-infested walls, the rats in the tunnels and under the concrete, the childish jabber in the dark, the whistle of a burning flame, the chants of the Whisperer in her shawl, the white, the black, the holy, the dead. All came to be as one, a circlet of fear and of debilitation, all waiting for the same answer no matter how far off or painful.

Roy saw something move in the shadows of the tunnels.

One of the men, with his grip tight on the teen's arm, snorted and said, "What if this brat has the parasite?"

"Yeah," the other man agreed, gaze going accusingly to Riza. "That Alphonse. He killed that woman the other day; he leaves the Held to eat as they please. Why keep his brother alive at all if he's suffering so badly?"

Hawkeye couldn't supply an answer to that; only Alphonse could. But to kill his own brother was a sin that hadn't entered the boy's mind, at least not yet. Alphonse believed Edward could be saved, just as he had been saved from the life of a bodiless soul in armor, dissolving daily as a time-bomb ready to explode. Edward wasn't ill, Al insisted constantly. Just not working.

"That's different," she responded at last.

"Right. So what if he does become like them? What if he kills us all?"

"He's not going to."

"Still, have to be safe." He grinned, all sloppy yellow teeth and gum.

Edward buckled forward, clutching at his chest and gritting his teeth in pain. He drew his knees up towards his body and leaned his head against them, rocking back and forth as he tried desperately not to scream anymore. Riza and the others released him without a word, simply watching and wondering what to do. Hawkeye searched for something to knock him out with - anything - so long as he didn't have to consciously feel tormented.

Roy knelt down beside her, and he told her with his eyes that he could handle it. She obeyed him, standing up and letting him communicate in that odd way he was able to. It was like an unspoken language to her; something far more between them.

Edward didn't look up at the dark-haired man, instead muttering something like a chant under his breath. Roy detected a few fleeting phrases, none of which were in Amestrian. Gently he reached out and touched his shoulder, and the boy's head snapped up, his expression vacant. "There's seven more in the basement." He said quietly, not quite looking over the man's head.

That didn't make any goddamn sense.

"And every one is a red star."

"The fuck is he talking about?" one of the men from earlier shouted, blood lust in his eyes. "Something about stars? Fuck."

The Whisperer gathered herself up, coming over to Roy and Edward with a look of impenetrability on her face. "That's not him," she said without breathing.

"Ira, socors, invidia..." Edward kept rocking, slowly shaking his head as though waged in an inner battle with himself. Roy's demeanor turned quite suddenly dark, and his hands snapped to hold the teen firmly in place.

The Whisperer held onto her rosary beads in a clenched fist. "In the name of the father, I command you to leave."

Edward laughed. Roy kept a tight grip on his body, the steel in his glare so hard that those around him sensed the hate like a flame. "Aut pars eram nemus vita..." Edward said quietly, taking slow and shaking breaths. Roy's grip involuntarily tightened; he didn't recognize the words, but somehow understood their meaning.

The Whisperer crossed herself, the sheen of sweat caressing her forehead.

Edward's eyes slid upwards, locking onto Roy's as though to challenge him. "...Quod erant igneus."

They remained that way, staring and not listening to the world around them, for some time. The Whisperer shook her head, slowly at first, and then more quickly as thoughts swarmed like a plague of locusts.

"No!" she said and repeated. She pressed her hands to her ears, the rosary beads clanking against one another. "No!" she shrieked, falling to her knees on the ground and tugging at her hair. She rocked forward and backwards, chanting some sort of verse under her breath. The rest of the room looked on in wonder and fear, holding onto each other as lamp light dimly flickered on their hollow cheekbones.

They were statues of circumstance.

"My lord's promise," the Whisperer stuttered. "I was to be spared." She stretched graying and frayed hair well past limitations, until she had a small bundle clenched in a thin hand. She stared at it silently for a moment, and then began to tremble intensely.

"What did he say? What did he say?" a man asked.

Edward was staring at her darkly, half in amusement and half in boiling anger. Roy detected something inhuman, something completely beyond comprehension. Evil, perhaps, if such things were to be believed.

The Whisperer dove for her purse on the side of the railway tracks, and started rummaging through it with a fevered need. She shook her head and muttered things to herself, commandments and bits of passage that only she could name. Roy expected her to pull out her old bible. He expected her to wallow in misery and turn to the invisible god for support.

So of course, his eyes widened when he realized it was a handgun. A chorus of screams rang out across the subway station as the men and women saw it for what it was. Without much thought, Roy found his body flinging itself in front of the blond teenager to protect him.

Riza took on a look of horror, hand bolting to her side only to find there was no holster and only air. "You stay the hell away from that kid-!"

Women and children cowered in the arms of husbands, shocked by the gentle woman suddenly turning into a homicidal beast. Her knees wobbled where she stood, the gun pointed silently at the barely breathing form of Roy Mustang. "Get away from the child," she seethed with a touch of mania. "He must die, he is already _dead_."

Roy did nothing, merely loosening his grip on Edward, whose mocking smile was hard to miss.

The Whisperer caught glance of it and let off another shriek, blindly firing off the trigger. The bullet streaked through the air with a bang, barely missing Roy and shattering off a wall. White powder tile cascaded down and her breathing increased. She opened her eyes, partly shocked at what her own hand had done and disappointed that she hadn't hit her target. "You..._fool_...," she said between clenched teeth, foam and spit coming from between cracked lips.

Roy's chest constricted. He could barely breathe. All of his muscles were taut and on edge, the noise of the bullet setting all of his senses on alert. The scars all across his body began to burn with the fires of hell and oblivion. His expression remained emotionless. He couldn't think. On one hand, he had to protect Edward; that was all that mattered, because if he didn't protect Edward, then it would have all been for nothing...

But something was...wrong...

She took a deep breath and pressed the trigger again. It clicked but no shot was fired. She looked at it with a horrified expression - it was jammed by some unseen force, not empty. She glanced once at Edward, and then back down to the gun. Everyone began to realize she was temporarily weaponless, Roy included, who felt the pressure on his heart lessen somewhat.

Behind the Whisperer, the lame keeper had crept up, ready to grab her and take the gun away. Roy's breath hitched. On the floor, spread out all across, was a slick surface of leaked oil. The man cried out as he slid across it, falling down.

He made to grab onto something, and took hold of the Whisperer's shawl. They both collided with the floor, the oil lamp knocked along with them. Roy heard a shatter of glass, and then two blood curdling screams as the small flame devoured the oil in one great burst.

The Whisperer's clothing caught fire first, the flame licking up the wool as easily as tissue paper. She tried to claw her way out of the prison, smoke curling around the room as frantic people watched in horror. Cries for water went unanswered, as there was none to be found.

The two were completely engulfed in fire, bodies cast in a red glare, mouths screaming in alien cries as their flesh turned black. The man's daughter cried from the side, being held back by a strange woman. She kicked and yelled, one small hand reaching for her father. The man's eyes went white, dissolving and bursting with sickening pops.

_That...smell...!_

Roy turned away into the wall, trying to lose himself in the past, though there was nothing good to immerse himself in. Edward was still smiling, his eyes a soft dull red in the flame, the smell of burning flesh and meat and fetid anguish curdling in the air.

Several people were rushing back and forth, some trying to escape the fire as it spread along the floor, some ever trying to find water.

It was absolute chaos.

The bodies were still screaming - however possible -

_God, how the fuck is it possible?_

Even if they were black as coal and indistinguishable from burning logs -

"No!" Edward screamed suddenly, all laughter and amusement suddenly gone. Roy went back to him, holding him back as the boy struggled toward the people engulfed in fire. Edward tried pushing him away, somehow hell bent on getting toward them. "No! Stop! Fuck, just let me go-"

Men and women ran for the exit points as the flames spread, through the gates and up the stairs. The fire was steadily spreading. Roy tried to force Edward off the ground, but the teenager refused to go with him, instead pulling and tugging away toward the spreading flames and the now-still remains of the victims.

"Stop _using _me for this - !" Ed broke down crying, his body falling almost limp. Only Roy kept him off the ground, still hoisting him for the stairwell. "C-Colonel...Colonel, make it stop..."

Colonel. Alphonse called him that, too. But as far as he knew, he deserved no such title. "Nothing...we can do..." he forced out, the speech coming slowly from his mouth. Who was using him? What should he stop? He had no idea. He couldn't fix problems! He wasn't made for that, he couldn't help him - couldn't save him, but damn he would if he could.

Riza ran up to them, clear tears staining her cheeks in the light of hell. "We need to get out of here - the fire's going to spread!" She took a horrified glance back at the flames and then composed herself immediately, her old soldierly instincts her only defense at the height of terror. Certainly this was no worse than what she had seen in trench warfare. "Colonel."

Edward started coughing, and it burned his throat. He tasted blood. "No...no, we can't leave, we can't leave!" He grabbed onto the front of Roy's jacket, a pained look on his face. Hot wetness tracked down from his eyes, the hue now more familiar honey gold. "He wants them to kill us."

No sooner had the statement passed the boy's lips than Roy heard a commotion from the stairwell. The escaping group of survivors had stopped dead in their tracks as they realized their path was barred, their location given away by the screaming and the light. Black creatures and shapes and the Held all came in a rush, the scent of blood ever prominent. Dark shapes were crawling along the ceiling, violet pairs of eyes all across their bodies; Roy cursed, realizing a knife would no longer do a lick of good.

The creatures dropped down from the ceiling onto men's backs, blood sheathing the ground with loud slick sounds as heads were torn from bodies.

Roy recalled the sight and the smell and the heart pounding fear, but he felt it was almost from an earlier lifetime. "Fuck!" He kept his hold on Edward and ran forward, ignoring the sights and the sounds. Riza followed at a sprint.

The creatures had mouths, but they were mostly made up of scissor like teeth, a mask of metal to hide the throat. The Held were less grotesque; more human than monster, but still lost, their only need hunger and their only desire to kill. They lived short periods of time, their skin was pale, their eyes turned black with age. And still they slaughtered, a parasite in their very brains, of the same breed that the violet eyed creatures belonged to.

He heard the shrill cry of an infant in the bloodbath, and realized it had been abandoned by a mother just recently disemboweled beside it, her face torn apart and mangled. A black shape was crawling toward it, curious or elated, Roy wasn't certain. He took out his knife and shoved it through the thick skull of the thing, crunching dark matter falling all along the hilt of the blade and the cement ground. He made a forceful twist of the blade, cringing slightly, and then removed it. Edward wrenched out of his grasp and picked up the infant, holding it tightly against his chest.

The room was quickly dripping with crimson liquid and filled with the sound of mad screaming. The dead were dropping like flies. Some were managing escape up the stairwell, others were braving the tunnels. One man fell down into the tracks and unluckily landed on a live subway wire, his body frying instantly in a show of flames and sparks and electricity. Roy pulled Edward away by the forearm, making a vicious slash across the stomach to a monster heading for a child just a few feet away. The girl was crying for her mother, the spreading fire casting a strange light on her wet cheeks.

Edward tried to pull away again to help her, but Roy wouldn't let him go. "They're going to kill her!" Edward protested.

Roy took him tightly by the shoulders, wary of the infant. He shook him hard. "We're all dead now, do you understand that, Fullmetal?" Roy's eyes widened. That name. Why the fuck had he said that name...? Riza noticed it too, and very dimly, she thought he had remembered something; then she understood that it was just a flicker of memory, nothing more.

"Sir!"

The fire was growing, some of the creatures on the ceiling accidentally falling into it and screeching their last. Roy told Edward to close his eyes, though there was little that would do. They half ran toward the stairwell, jumping over dead bodies and mindlessly killing whatever came into sight. Edward didn't know how to save anyone, and it tormented him, because he knew that somehow he had caused it. He didn't know why, or how, but it was because of that _thing. _The thing that talked to him while he slept, while he dreamed; the thing that controlled him mercilessly. He jumped as he was slammed against a wall beside a ticket taker, the baby in his arms still crying.

"Get out," Roy said quietly, taking a firm grip on the teen's jaw. "Go find...your brother."

Edward choked back his sobs, and said weakly, "What about you?"

"They'll kill all of us...if we all leave..."

Riza stepped forward. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!"

"You have another idea?"

"Goddamn it, you stubborn man, get these children out of here!"

Edward sucked in a shuddering breath, and then said softly, "I can't do this...anymore..." He couldn't remember. He couldn't remember anything. He felt he was being pulled back into a still state of half-consciousness. He hated it there, because that's when they would all come out - whispers in the dark. He didn't want to face them alone. "I..." He stopped, sudden fear in his expression.

Roy felt a sharp blow to the back of his head, and then everything went black.


End file.
